TL;DR. The Governance team proposes extending the AdvanceSnsTargetVersion mechanism to allow SNSs to opt-in for automatic updates to the latest version approved by the NNS community.
Background
In recent months, the ICP community has published an average of over 1.6 SNS upgrades per week. For each upgrade, an eligible SNS neuron holder from each SNS community had to manually submit an UpgradeSnsToNextVersion proposal. In 2024, this process resulted in approximately 85 proposals across 30 SNSs, requiring over 2,500 DAO decisions to keep SNSs updated.
The introduction of the AdvanceSnsTargetVersion proposal type has significantly improved this situation. Most SNSs now upgrade once per release cycle rather than once per individual SNS canister upgrade. However, with nearly weekly release cycles, this still amounts to roughly 1,500 decisions per year — an effort that will only grow as more projects launch.
New feature
We propose enhancing the AdvanceSnsTargetVersion mechanism to allow SNSs to opt-in for automatic upgrades to the latest available SNS version that has been approved by the NNS community.
This opt-in feature aims to simplify the upgrade process and reduce the maintenance burden of the SNS communities, ensuring SNSs seamlessly adopt community-approved improvements and features. Opting in would require submitting a single ManageNervousSystemParameters proposal. Similarly, SNSs could opt out of automatic updates at any time by submitting another ManageNervousSystemParameters proposal.
We look forward to hearing your feedback and engaging in discussions around this proposed design!